Our environment, social and governance approach

Customers are at the centre of everything we do. We’re customer owned and we began as an alternative way for people to achieve home ownership.

We’re supporting customers with our vision of providing Australia’s favourite banking experience, improving accessibility to our products and services for customers, especially in times of vulnerability, and supporting our customers to understand banking can help them be able to better manage their money.

The generosity of spirit and dedication of our people has always been part of our makeup. Our aspiration is to help our people achieve their best, professionally, personally, and within our local communities.

Our priorities around our people and the workplace will include a growing commitment to wellness in the workplace, ensuring that our Equal Employment Opportunity policy creates a diverse and inclusive approach to recruitment and the workplace and continuing to develop the talent and skills of the team. We’re also committed to continuing our employee volunteering program.

We are an active and supportive part of the communities in which we operate and we are dedicated to supporting our local communities. We do this through our active community sponsorship and partnership program, and through the Newcastle Permanent Charitable Foundation. In addition, we champion human rights, support national reconciliation and are prioritising the development of our own Reconciliation Action Plan.

We’re building on our contribution to protecting the environment, now and for future generations. We recognise it is the responsibility of organisations to do more and our customers, in recent research, have told us that they support this approach.

We will focus our efforts on minimising our operational environmental footprint. Within our operations we will focus on improving our energy, water, waste and transport practices in the following ways:

Energy
Within our business we are actively seeking opportunities to become more energy efficient, including by minimising our energy consumption and implementing energy-saving practices across our business where possible.

Water
We will continue to monitor water use at all our facilities and look to make savings where practical.

Waste
We continue to reduce our paper consumption through the implementation of digital processes and communications, source recycled supplies, and work with our contractors and suppliers to manage waste more efficiently.

Transport
We will continue to manage and monitor our motor vehicle fleet usage and look to make savings in fuel consumption.

Strong governance guides our principled approach, with customers at the centre of our decision-making. Our Corporate Governance report is included in our Annual Report demonstrating our transparent and well-measured management systems and reporting.